The Car Seat

A few weeks ago, I signed up for a “Sell Now” event for an upcoming large children’s consignment sale.  I had a few baby items I wanted to offload that I knew would never be used again, even if we had another baby, like a double stroller.   

The morning of the event, I was sitting there eating breakfast when I remembered that car seats have expiration dates.  We’ve kept one of our infant carriers and two bases in the basement since the girls outgrew them at around 9 months old.  I assumed ours probably still had a year left until it expired so I figured it couldn’t hurt to offload it to someone who could definitely use it in that time, when any future use by us was purely hypothetical.

So I journeyed into our basement to check the expiration date.

August 2023.

6 months from now.

Seeing that date slapped me in the face. 

Immediately, I started crying.

We used that car seat to bring home our daughters in 2018 and then stored it in the basement for another almost 4 years, after they outgrew it, in the hopes that a younger sibling would eventually use it.

The fact that the car seat expires in August 2023, was a glaring reminder that after 17 months of trying (18 now), we weren’t even close to having another child and even if I were to get pregnant soon, no future child would be able to use that car seat before it expired.  We started trying (no longer preventing) in August 2021, when our girls turned 3.  That car seat will expire two years later with no child of ours able to use it.  

After crying in the basement alone, I brought the car seat upstairs to find Hubby standing in the kitchen.  Immediately I started crying hard and he just held me while saying “I know”.  (Meanwhile, our daughters proceeded to yell at him for making me cry. LOL)  I didn’t even have to tell him why I was upset.  He knew the moment he saw the car seat.

In the time period that we’ve been trying, others have gone on to get pregnant and birth live babies while we continued to hold on to a car seat that will never be used by our family.

It absolutely sucks that it is so much harder for us.

I’m still not at the point where I want to actively pursue intervention, but the breakdown I experienced because of this car seat shows that I also am not ready to throw in the towel when it comes to us having another child. 

I had hoped that maybe we would be those people who struggled with infertility, stop preventing pregnancy after having children who were conceived via fertility treatments, and magically get pregnant naturally, removing any choice I would have to make about actively pursuing another child. 

I wanted it to be that easy; that whole “if it happens, it happens” idea.

However, it doesn’t seem to be happening for us and the ache I feel about that makes me struggle with all the variables of another child.  

Can we afford another child with the current cost of life right now? (Seriously, I am spending $150-200 A WEEK on groceries at this point and it’s INSANE!)

Do I want to risk the possibility of losing another child?

Do I want to take the risk of even being pregnant? (I know we downplay it, but pregnancy is a risk.  Mothers do still die in childbirth and our country has a pretty horrendous mother mortality rate for a developed country.)

What would a new baby do to our family dynamic?

Can we go back to doing it all again?

Are all of the girls’ firsts, also our lasts?

Can I deal with never experiencing babyhood again? (I sobbed when I registered the girls for kindergarten in January; partly because my “babies” aren’t babies anymore, partly because that could be the first and only time I register a child for kindergarten, which hurt.)

Of course other families have similar things to consider when thinking of having another child, but many don’t have to think “should I PAY to have another child?” or “should I put myself through the stress of fertility treatments again?”. 

I hate that it feels so complicated for us. There is just an added layer of things to consider when it comes to expanding your family via fertility treatments.

My heart aches to experience babyhood again with another child, to soak in all the firsts, knowing they will also be our lasts.

Yet, I’m also content with the three beautiful children I have and the life we are living currently.

I’m conflicted and I hate it and I’m not sure what we are going to do moving forward.